Stats

  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 16
  • Subscribers 63
  • Views 11634
  • Members are here 0
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Insufficient memory to run PSS analysis - how to resolve?

apaj

Hello.

I did see that there are three recent threads with very similar titles, but - unfortunately, with completely different problems described.

I use up-to-date MMSIM and IC5 (2012_2013 package installed on a 32 bit machine) and I have given a swap file to the PSS analysis. I am trying to get IIP3 post-layout simulation to run for my circuit (QRC used for extraction). I want it measured at 8 and 9 GHz with 200 MHz harmonics. I do only 6 steps for signals of power in the range of -20:5 dBm.

Nevertheless, the simulation breaks telling me - insufficient memory. During the simulation, it doesn't really use the file I gave it (<path>/Desktop/pss_swap - it's always 0 bytes). What it actually does is that it creates about twenty files called pss_swap_0, pss_swap_1, and so on, each of them about 1.2 GB. And it does this for every point of calculation.

Now, my question is, is it possible (and how?) to overcome this? If I choose a higher limit for extraction my S-parameters change, so I can not go higher on this. Less than 6 points... does it really make sense? Number of harmonics must remain the same since I need it calculated at certain frequencies. 

Do you have any suggestions how to get this done?

Thank you very much for your time and effort.

Parents

  • You clearly have the wrong version of spectre (an old one) in your UNIX path. Spectre (back in IC5141) used to be in the IC stream when IC5141 was released in 2004. Late in 2004, a new MMSIM stream was created and there have been 10 major releases of MMSIM since it was launched 10 years ago... you're using a hotfix of IC5141 which is before Harmonic Balance (which used to be known as Flexible Balance in spectre) was launched, which was in MMSIM61 (ish) time frame.

    Generally the "Harmonic Balance" options shouldn't show up on the QPSS or PSS forms unless you have a version of the simulator which supports this in your UNIX path. My guess is that for some reason you have the "SPECTRE_FEATURE_FILE" UNIX env var set (which you should NOT do) which is pointing at a feature file (which is a little database indicating what features a release of spectre supports, so that the ADE UI can adapt accordingly) from a newer release.

    So, to get this to work, make sure that you don't have SPECTRE_FEATURE_FILE set, and ensure that $PATH includes (at the beginning) <MMSIMinstDir>/tools/bin before you start icfb.

    Regards,

    Andrew.

Reply

  • You clearly have the wrong version of spectre (an old one) in your UNIX path. Spectre (back in IC5141) used to be in the IC stream when IC5141 was released in 2004. Late in 2004, a new MMSIM stream was created and there have been 10 major releases of MMSIM since it was launched 10 years ago... you're using a hotfix of IC5141 which is before Harmonic Balance (which used to be known as Flexible Balance in spectre) was launched, which was in MMSIM61 (ish) time frame.

    Generally the "Harmonic Balance" options shouldn't show up on the QPSS or PSS forms unless you have a version of the simulator which supports this in your UNIX path. My guess is that for some reason you have the "SPECTRE_FEATURE_FILE" UNIX env var set (which you should NOT do) which is pointing at a feature file (which is a little database indicating what features a release of spectre supports, so that the ADE UI can adapt accordingly) from a newer release.

    So, to get this to work, make sure that you don't have SPECTRE_FEATURE_FILE set, and ensure that $PATH includes (at the beginning) <MMSIMinstDir>/tools/bin before you start icfb.

    Regards,

    Andrew.

Children
No Data

Community Guidelines

The Cadence Design Communities support Cadence users and technologists interacting to exchange ideas, news, technical information, and best practices to solve problems and get the most from Cadence technology. The community is open to everyone, and to provide the most value, we require participants to follow our Community Guidelines that facilitate a quality exchange of ideas and information. By accessing, contributing, using or downloading any materials from the site, you agree to be bound by the full Community Guidelines.